


but I was born impatient and I was born unkind

by macabrekawaii



Series: This could be love (love for fire) [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Romance, Bottom Jason, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, M/M, Oral Sex, Pov Dick, Praise Kink, Pseudo-Incest, Smoking, Top Dick, an entire party bus of angst, but with a happy destination, jaydick, please tell Jason he is a good boy, so much praise kink, someone has to remember Jason Todd died at all times, two idiots working out their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24872029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabrekawaii/pseuds/macabrekawaii
Summary: Dick and Jason have been dancing around their feelings through a series of hookups and one-night stands after meeting on patrol most nights. Whatever this thing is between them is about to come crashing down, but does Dick understand what it takes to love Jason Todd?
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Series: This could be love (love for fire) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802137
Comments: 23
Kudos: 175





	but I was born impatient and I was born unkind

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hi I tried writing a nice romantic fic but it became a hellscape of angst so buckle the fuckle up. There’s no real spoilers for anything, and this can take place nebulously any time after Jason has stopped trying to obliterate the batfam, and in whatever universe you see fit. It doesn’t rely very much on any specific canon. For ages, I see Jason as around 22 and Dick in his mid to late 20’s. Canon ages? SHRUG?? I am very into the idea of Jason having an autopsy scar, which also varies by canon also but is referenced in this fic, so if that disturbs you turn back now. There’s also some talk of them being brothers, so if that’s not your thing be warned, but it’s slight and really not the focus. I hope you enjoy if you do please like and comment. 
> 
> Takes place sometime after my fic [I've got some bad ideas involving you and me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695854) probably within a few weeks of it, after they've made a habit of ending up at Dick's apartment instead of just fucking in random alleys like cats in heat. 
> 
> Title is from “Cocaine and Abel” by Amigo the Devil, which is the ultimate Jason Todd anthem to me.

It starts as it always does: with Jason sitting on Dick’s fire escape smoking a cigarette, his back to the opened window, acting like he was not already welcomed inside. Whatever this thing was between them, the song and dance was getting old—they’d meet while on patrol, fight against one another or together against some common foe (though lately, more often, the latter), Dick ends up begging Jason not to break the bat code, Jason’s reluctant agreement, hushed promises made through masks after victory, and, eventually, ends with Jason sitting on Dick’s fire escape, waiting to be invited in like the creature of the night that he was.  
  
“You can come inside already, unless it’s still brood-o-clock out there.” Dick’s voice is easy and calm. This game is familiar to the both of them. Jason needs coaxing and enticement to come inside, to know it’s okay. To know that this—whatever this was—is okay.

Anticipation thrums through Dick’s body like the loud bass on a dance floor. His body hums with it, taught and ready. Dick didn’t know quite when it started—somewhere between hurried fucks in a dirty alley, and the third or fourth time Jason made his way to his apartment, to his home, to use an actual bed, to not have to rush—but something in their dynamic had shifted. It wasn’t about just getting off anymore, to Dick. It wasn’t about this illicit need, this… thing… between himself and his not-quite brother. It felt a lot like a promise, one that Dick wasn’t sure he was ready to offer.

  
“Well if the princess insists.” Jason tosses his cigarette down to the alley below, not bothering to snuff it out. He swings into the room in one swift motion all fluid and grace for a man of his size. His shoulders barely clear the window, but he lands noiselessly in the living room of Dick’s messy apartment. He tosses his helmet to the ground near the couch, along with a frighteningly complex array of weapons and utility belts. “Don’t make me regret this later.”

  
“What, the booty call or putting your weapons down?” Dick stands with his hands on his hips, a lithe imitation of coquettish charm.

  
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other.” Jason smirks and strides confidently over to Dick, who was already in his civilian pajamas—a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips, and nothing else. Jason knew to give Dick time to change after patrol, prissy as he is, he likes to primp.

Jason licks into Dick’s mouth, his tongue fluttering against his lower lip. He pulls back and worries at Dick’s lower lip with his teeth, almost enough to break skin, before licking again, deeper. Jason’s lips are warm and wet and plush and taste of some sharp alcohol he must have taken a swig from before coming inside. Dick feels their slick slide against his own lips, feels Jason kiss him, almost hesitantly, before slipping his tongue into his mouth again. They crush together, the kisses deepen into something else, both making only the sound of their lips together and their breathy moans. Dick’s fingers tangle into Jason’s hair, his blunt nails scrape against his scalp. Jason leans into the touch sighs into Dicks open mouth. Dick hitches his leg up along Jason’s thigh, hooks his ankle behind his knee. Dick can feel that Jason’s already hard and grinds his own want up against Jason’s groin, rocking into him.

  
“Fuck, Dickie.”

He leans down, mouthing against Jason’s neck. He breathes him in, his scent wild with gunpowder and smoke. Dick slides Jason’s jacket off, lets the other man step back to unhook the latches on his Kevlar, lets it fall away. Jason works until he’s standing in nothing more than a pair of black boxers, his cock visibly straining against the taught fabric. Dick sucks in a breath, taking all of Jason in. Thick scars mottle his arms and legs, and his broad chest—god his chest, Dick thinks—an endless story of a war that will never be won. Their war. But one that Jason has paid a far higher price than Dick could ever know. Dick reaches out and smooths his hands down Jason’s sides, raking his nails just hard enough to leave red blotches in their wake. Jason keens, arches his back.

“Look at you, fuck, Jason, you’re so goddamn gorgeous.”

  
Jason huffs a laugh, sighs a bit as Dick leans in to kiss his neck again. “I’m not, I’m a mess.”

  
“You’re my mess.” Dick bites down, not hard, right at Jason’s collarbone, right where a bullet wound not yet fully healed blossoms angry and raw against Jason’s skin. “You make me so fucking crazy.”

  
“Pfft, stop it.” Jason’s laughing a bit, half giggle, half sigh while Dick makes quick work of marking up Jason’s neck with light bruises.

  
“I mean it,” and Dick’s love-drunk already, his blood pulsing in his ears, his head swimming with the heady reality that’s _Jason_ here with him. Dick cups his face and kisses him hard, more smile than anything sexual. “You’re my mess, Jaybird.” Dick feels Jason tense oddly, his face going slack.

“I don’t deserve you.” Jason pulls back and walks back over to the open window. He doesn’t leave through it, just leans against it, pressing his forehead to the cool glass. Dick can see where his breath fogs against the glass as he takes a few, shallow breaths. “I don’t deserve…” Jason gestures around him, to the silent apartment, to Dick, who is staring at him in the dim light of the living room. Dick who is staring right at Jason’s face, trying his best to see what it is that’s made Jason so shaken. “…any of this. I’m not a person worthy of you looking at me like that.”

  
“That isn’t true Jay, you deserve whatever you want. Whatever penance you think you owe, whatever you’ve done, we know it came from a place of being hurt. We know—"

  
“Is that you talking or…”

  
Dick rubs at the back of his neck and walks over to Jason.

  
“It’s me.” Dick cups the back of Jason’s head, and for a moment, holds him in perfect stillness. Jason doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, just keeps his face turned away to the blackness of late-night Gotham. After a few shaky breaths, he turns around.

When Dick meets his gaze again, Jason’s eyes are red-rimmed and chillingly grey, almost devoid of color, like the pale sky before a storm.

“There was nothing Dickie.” There’s a heaviness in his voice when he speaks, like the words are lodged in his throat, too dense and viscous to easily come out. 

Dick freezes. He doesn’t need Jason to explain what he’s talking about. There’s no question—Dick knows exactly what he means.

“There was… *I* was nothing.” Jason’s voice cracks. “I was… nothing. There’s no reward, Dick. There’s no punishment. There’s only this dirty city, this shitty apartment, and then emptiness. Blackness. Nothing.”

“Jason, I—” Dick smooths a strand of white hair off Jason’s brow, lets his fingers slide lower to brush against the younger man’s coarse stubble. Jason catches his arm at the wrist and lowers it.

  
“No, no listen. Please. Please I gotta… I gotta do this.” Hearing Jason say please sends a chill down Dick’s spine. He sounds shattered. Like every word threatens to break whatever holds Jason together, whatever keeps this man beside him tethered to the world. “There was nothing, and I was nothing, and sometimes, a lot of the time, I feel like not all of me came back.”

  
  
“You don’t have to be the same person you were, little wing.”

  
  
“Yeah, well. I don’t really feel like a person at all.” Jason slides down to the floor, drawing his knees to his chest.

Like this, Dick sees echoes of the scrawny kid he once knew, like a ghost draped around Jason’s substantial frame. He remembers a night that feels like an eternity ago, like someone else’s lifetime ago—a night of patrol that ended badly, a near deadly fall for Jason, the Joker getting away as Bruce’s attentions fell on rescuing the young Robin. Back at the manor, Dick had been in the Batcave, researching something-or-other about gangs linking drug trade between Gotham and Blüdhaven. Dick was still so new to being on his own, he hadn’t yet made connections in Blüdhaven, instead relying on what Batman’s computer could help him surmise. Bruce had been back hours ago, had gone back up to the manor without a word, and Dick had no idea Jason hadn’t returned alongside him. Jason made his way into the cave, sniffling from the cold, trudging over to the computers like a lost puppy. He hadn’t said a word, just slid into Dick’s lap and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, his skinny legs bracketing Dick’s thighs, and cried.

 _I fucked up._ Jason sniffled loudly, and wiped his nose across his glove. _I fucked up and failed and he left me out there._

 _C’mon little wing,_ Dick smoothed Jason’s damp, dark hair off his forehead, cool with winter frost. _He didn’t leave you because you fucked up, he left you because he trusted you to find your way back on your own._

Dick sinks to his knees beside Jason, afraid to touch him, like a piece of glass ready to shatter under pressure.

  
Jason reaches up to cup Dick’s jaw, pulling him up, tilting his gaze to his own. Jason’s hands are rough against Dick’s clean-shaven face. The younger man swipes a calloused thumb over Dick’s lips. He looks down at Dick through cold, half-lidded eyes. He repeats his earlier refrain quiet and low. “I don’t deserve you.”

“I’m not some prize Jaybird. I’m not some prize to deserve.” Dick takes hold of Jason’s wrist, sliding his hand down Dick’s bare skin, splaying Jason’s large hand over his chest, over his heart. “And even if I were, even if I were this golden prize. You’d deserve it. You deserve me. I—” Dick cuts himself off, feeling a prickle at the edges of his eyes. He feels heavy, soggy somehow, sodden with grief and lust and the horrid juxtaposition of the two. “I’m the one who failed you.”

“You know that isn’t true. Don’t make yourself a martyr to make me feel better. We both know who failed me.”

  
  
They let the name hang between them, unspoken.

  
“You were my brother and I wasn’t there. I was so excited to be on my own, finally out from under Bru-- from under Batman’s wings, I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t see you. None of us did.”

Jason runs his thumb over Dick’s bottom lip, looks up at him through his lashes. Dick can feel a shudder creep down his spine at the touch, like a current he can’t stop from flowing through him.

  
“You see me now.”

  
Jason surges forward, catching Dick’s mouth in a searing kiss. Dick groans into it, can’t help himself, and wraps his arms around Jason’s broad shoulders. Jason slides his legs apart to make room for Dick, but instead Dick straddles him, splaying his own legs impossibly wide, until he’s flush right against Jason’s body, slotting together.  
  
Dick sucks a bruise below Jason’s jaw, onto the side of his neck right below his chin, too high to cover with his costume, too high to cover at all. He wants Jason to see it, he wants Jason to wake up tomorrow and see the bruise and know that he is real, and alive, and _his_. Jason is shaking beneath him, his firm body vibrating with want and need and a tension Dick knows all too well, that he can feel inside himself. He laps at Jason’s Adam’s apple slowly, laving his tongue across the younger man’s sweat-soaked skin. He tastes like sweat, sure, but also like smoke, like gunpowder, like dirt, like blood. Like death, Dick thinks, he tastes of death. Of his own death. Of the death he brings to others.

Thick scars rope across Jason’s chest and down his abdomen and Dick does his best not to think about why, not to think about the body beneath him, now searingly hot and arching into his touch, being still and cold. Dick drags his nails down Jason’s chest, tracing the edges of where the scar dips down towards navel. Dick grinds against Jason in tight little circles. He can feel the man beneath him growing harder and harder, feel his own erection becoming uncomfortably trapped between their bodies. Dick gently rakes his nails down Jason again, teasing the edges of the thick marks that stand out above all others. He slides his fingers beneath the waistband of Jason’s underwear. Suddenly Jason is pushing him up, trying to wriggle out from under him. He looks at Dick with dark eyes, pupils blown.

  
“Bedroom, now.”

  
Dick stands up first then offers a hand to Jason, but pulls him into a hug as soon as he has his legs stretched beneath him. Jason lands against his chest with a soft thud. “Hop up little wing.”  
It takes a second for Jason’s brain to recognize what he’s being asked to do.

  
“You serious?” Jason huffs but presses his weight closer into Dick’s body.

  
“Yeah I’m serious, hop up. Like we used to.” Jason jumps up and wraps his legs around Jason’s hips. Dick’s balance is thrown off for a moment, but he leans back to stabilize, and soon has a pretty solid grip on Jason, bracing his forearms against his thighs, his hands cupped under Jason’s solid ass.

  
Dick can carry a lot of weight, knows that as far as men his size go, he’s on the stronger side. But Jason is 200+lbs of solid muscle, and it’s all Dick can do to support him as he carries him to the nearby bedroom. But Dick is, if nothing else, determined to a fault and he has decided he is carrying Jason to the bedroom so he is carrying Jason to the damn bedroom. And if his knees buckle slightly as he hauls Jason onto the bed, well, maybe that’s just from the way he could feel Jason’s erection grinding against the flat planes of his stomach as he carried him.

  
“Fuck.” Jason says quietly, running his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

  
“You liked that, huh?” Dick is all swagger now as he crawls up onto the bed and pushes Jason down. “Liked that big bro can still toss you around?”

  
“Shit, Dick—” Jason wiggles out of his boxers, reaches across and tugs down on Dick’s pajamas. Dick takes the hint and steps out of them, but right as he tries to fully get them off, Jason yanks them away. Before Dick gets his bearings, Jason is pushing him down on the bed, flat on his back.

Jason slides down Dick’s body, nipping at his skin along the way, his hands grabbing onto the older man’s hips. His nails dig in, leaving half-moon marks from the force of it. He pushes Dick’s legs apart and settles there, looking up at Dick with crystal eyes. They’re still red-rimmed, only now his pupils are blown wide, and the color seems to bleed and glow in the dark, like the iridescence of a cat’s eye. Jason rakes his nails down across the taught v of Dick’s groin, down across his thighs. Dick arches up, moaning loudly. He can feel Jason’s breath ghost over his cock as he leans forward, dipping his head low enough his hair brushes Dick’s length.

“Gods, little wing, you’re killing me.”

Jason smirks and laves his tongue up the underside of Dick’s erection. He takes all of Dick in his mouth in one go, his hot breath nosing the thatch of hair at the base of his cock. Jason pulls off slowly and gives Dick an absolutely lurid smile.

  
Dick winks down at him.

  
At that, Jason sucks him off in earnest. Eagerly taking Dick down into his throat, licking his way back up, sliding his length out and sucking the head. Dick is moaning so loud he can barely hear the wet slide of Jason’s mouth on his arousal. He tangles his fingers into Jason’s hair, barely able to do more than give a stiff pull every now and then as he rocks his hips up into Jason’s hot mouth.

  
  
Dick comes down Jason’s throat with a shout and yanks Jason’s hair hard, pulling him with every spurt of release. Come dribbles out the side of Jason’s swollen mouth as Dick slides out, and Jason curls his lips into a smile. He licks away the errant spend.

  
  
“Goddamn Jason.”

  
Jason beams, looking ravaged and filthy. His lips are red and glossy and his hair sticks to his face soaked with sweat. He’s panting, eyes closed, tongue slightly pressed against his bottom lip, as if savoring Dick’s taste. Dick swipes his thumb across Jason’s bottom lip and blows him a kiss, leaving his hand to linger at the side of Jason’s face.

  
“What do you need baby?”

“I hate when you call me that.”

“What do you need little brother?”

  
“Why the fuck are you like this Dick?” Jason turns his head and licks a sticky trail up Dick’s palm.

  
“Yeah Jaybird, I’m the one _like this_.”

  
“Fuck me.” Jason says directly, locking eyes.  
  
“As you wish.” Jason groans.

  
  
Dick rummages in the nightstand behind his bed, finds his goal, and slinks back over to Jason, already spreading lube over his fingers. Jason’s pushed himself onto his back, his feet planted on the bed, knees bent, ass raised slightly. It’s quite the sight to behold. Dick positions himself over Jason, between his legs, pushes them further apart. Without fanfare, he circles Jason’s rim, his slick fingers gliding around the other’s entrance.

  
  
“C’mon I want it….” Jason turns his head, panting.

  
  
Jason looks down at Dick through his lashes just as Dick breeches him with one finger, sliding in up to the second knuckle with ease. For it, Dick sucks in a breath. He starts a slow slide in and out of Jason, twisting his finger a bit as he moves. Jason makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and bears down on the digit inside him.

“So eager baby.” Dick smirks. Jason huffs, arousal plain on his face across his red hot cheeks. He doesn’t quip.

Dick slides another finger in, scissoring the two, feeling the soft glide of lube on skin as he presses deeper. Jason keens and grips the sheets, white knuckled, eyes locked on where Dick’s hand enters him. Dick curls both fingers back further, pushing a little upwards. He presses against Jason’s sweet spot, rubbing circles, feels Jason’s walls flutter at the touch. Dick can already feel himself growing hard the more Jason pushes back against his fingers, the way his grunts turn to soft moans the more Dick works him open.

  
“Fffuck Dickie.” Jason hisses his name through gritted teeth. “Fuck. Shit. Shit shit shit. FUCK.”

  
“You got a dirty mouth little brother.” Jason mewls at that, a soft noise caught behind bared fangs. “But we already knew that when I came down your throat.”

“Goddammit Dick.” Jason turns his head to the side, panting hard. Dick does not stop his unrelenting assault on Jason’s prostate, even as he slides a third finger into his already shaking lover. Beads of precome drip from the top of Jason’s flushed cock, pearling up more and more with every thrust of Dick’s nimble fingers. “Please…. Please please…. I need—”

  
“What do you need Jay, tell me.”

“I need you inside me.”

  
“I’m already inside you.” Dick smirks.

  
“F-fuckkkk you know what I mean quit being an asshole.”

  
“Well since you asked so nicely.” Dick withdraws his fingers, wipes them on the bed, and grabs Jason’s legs. He pulls the larger man towards him and seats the head of his cock right up against Jason’s abused hole. He pushes forward, sliding into Jason’s tight heat.

  
“H-hhhhhh fuck fuck. Dick. Aaaa.” Jason turns his head to the side, tries to hide the blobby tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, the way his skin flushes red from his cheeks to his chest. Dick moves in earnest, sliding himself in and out of Jason, pushing out from root to tip before sliding in again at a slow, steady pace.

  
“So good, Jay, you’re so fucking good you know that?”

  
All Jason can do is whine.

  
“You’re so fucking good,” Dick continues as he moves faster, all but dragging Jason closer and further away as he thrusts, “you’re so perfect like this, just taking it. You can take so, so much, can’t you little wing?”

Jason mewls at that, scrabbles at the bed, moves his hands to Dick’s hips, feeling the other man sway as he thrusts.

“Can you lift yourself up for me?” Dick slides his hands under Jason’s ass, pulling him upwards as Jason arches his back, rocks forward as they both fall backwards, flipping Dick onto his back and Jason up onto his knees over him. He slides out of Jason with a wet pop as they switch positions. Dick’s head hits the edge of the bed, hanging off just a bit. It’s awkward, but he wouldn’t trade the position for the world. Tilting his head up, he watches as Jason sinks back down fully onto his cock. Jason’s eyes close with a look that can only be described as blissfully sinful. His tongue pokes out between his lips, wet and stretched from his earlier efforts, which are slightly parted. Sweat beads along his brow, sticking his white shock of hair to his slick forehead. Dick’s hands are on Jason’s thighs.

If Dick is a songbird-- lithe and hollow-boned, laughing at gravity—then Jason is something far more predatory. Muscles and sinew, bulk and power ready to strike—an eagle, like the guns he so favors.

  
Jason starts moving up and down on top of Dick, circling his hips. Dick groans and lets his head fall backwards. His hands stay on Jason’s thighs, he can feel the pulse of corded muscle as Jason rises and falls on Dick’s hardness. It’s more than he can bear, and Dick feels the first flutterings of his orgasm coiling low in his body. He feels like a rubberband of tight, white heat, ready to snap. Jason is really working him now, giving high keens of pleasure as he sinks and stretches himself around Dick’s cock, so hard he feels ready to burst. Dick tilts his head up again and catches Jason’s gaze. The younger man smiles, so genuinely, so joyfully, it sends Dick right over the edge.

  
_Jason, Jason, Jay_ … Dick is screaming Jason’s name as he comes again, bucking upwards, almost enough to throw Jason off of him as he snaps violently with his second release. He sits up and pulls Jason up, pulls him against his chest, winds his arms around his shoulders. Dick is still bucking upwards, not yet soft, barely able to move with how overstimulated he feels, but he knows it’s what Jason needs. He reaches down and strokes Jason’s cock, slick with sweat. He runs his thumb over the tip and feels a bead of precome slide from the head.

  
“You gonna come for me little wing?” Dick’s voice is low in Jason’s ear. Dick circles his own hips, nudging up into Jason as best as he can. The feeling is overwhelming and Dick feels like he’s shaking apart. He clings to Jason, digging his nails slightly into the hard flesh of Jason’s back. “C’mon little wing, pretty bird, show me.” Dick rakes his nails harder, angling down, sliding them around over Jason’s rib cage, leaving an angry trail of red in their wake. Jason moans, a broken sound, half groan and half choked sob.  
  
“Fuck I love you so much,” Jason cries into the side of Dick’s face, right up against his cheek, his lips right on his skin. Dick can _feel_ the words more than hear them being said. Dick can feel Jason’s hot tears spilling down onto his neck as he jerks up. Dick gives one last deep thrust while scratching at the younger man before Jason snaps as tight as a bowstring before yowling, loud as anything, leaning down, muffled by Dick’s shoulder. Jason comes hard, his come shooting across both their abdomens. 

  
Dick pulls out and sits back, leaning forward a bit to pull Jason against him. He holds him, petting his hair, saying nothing. He holds him until he feels his breathing evening out, rubs up and down his back, feels the rise and fall of his chest. It feels like a long time.

  
Jason flumps back on the bed. He throws himself into Dick’s nest of too many pillows and buries his face. Dick slides over to him, stroking his back more, just lightly.

  
“You okay there Jason?”

  
“Mmm-hmm.” Jason mumbles, muffled into a pillow. He’s curled on his side, facing away from Dick. His body language is hard to read, but seems somewhere between tired and sheepish. Dick thumbs the edge of his thigh, and Jason hums softly.

  
“Do you wanna stay?” Dick says as casually as possible, like his heart isn’t thudding in his chest, already anticipating Jason bolting the moment his strength returns.

  
“Mmm-hmm yeah.” Jason nuzzles into the pillow.

  
Alright then.

  
Dick scootches up on the bed, takes his tossed pajamas and rubs himself a bit, a half-assed attempt to clean up. He lies down next to Jason and throws one arm over his hip.

  
“I’m glad you’re here, Jay.”

  
Jason doesn’t respond, but he moves his hand to rest on top of the one Dick has on his hip. Jason rubs his thumb over Dick’s hand, a slow swirl across his long fingers. Dick yawns and lets himself drift off to the feeling of Jason's gentle caress.

* * *

  
  
Dick wakes slowly, unsure of the time. Blackout shades are a must for those in the nighttime vigilante business and the only indication Dick has that it’s daytime at all is a thin golden band of sunlight seeping in around the edges of his bedroom window. He reaches over and feels where Jason’s warmth still lingers in the bed.   
Jason is gone.

Dick sighs. He figured this would happen and, being honest with himself, is pretty okay with it. If Jason needs his space, needs to retreat like an alley cat yet to be tamed, well, Dick wouldn’t blame him.  
  
Bleary and half awake, Dick pads his way silently into the kitchen to start his morning routine. Throws on his pajamas from the night before. A cup of coffee is needed before anything else though, he boils the water and pours it through the fancy drip brewer Bruce got him for Christmas, appalled at Dick’s predilection to drink instant grounds. Dick blinks a few times and rubs at his eyes. His arms are sore from holding up Jason, and he smirks to himself as he idly rubs a shoulder. He hears a noise from outside, a kind of jangling and rustling, and suddenly clarity breaks in at the edges of his sleep-tinged vision. He snaps his gaze towards his open window. Someone’s outside.

Jason sits on Dick’s fire escape in only his boxers, his leather jacket beneath him, his bare legs dangling over the side in the warm, midsummer morning air. He had grabbed his clothes, clearly ready to sneak away, but refrained for some reason, and instead tossed them idly near his discarded helmet and weapons by the couch.

Dick finds himself completely transfixed. In the bright early sun, Jason looks like a true Adonis. His body is sculpted, golden marble. Each deep, white scar across his back seems as if illuminated from within. He’s humming to himself softly as smokes, puffing a tune between drags. Whether he’s taken notice of Dick or not, he pays him no mind. Dick finds himself staring for a good length of time. He feels frozen, locked in place. Jason takes a drag and exhales slowly. Dick can see the rise and fall of Jason’s back as he exhales, and he quietly walks towards the window.   
  
“You’re so beautiful Jay.” Dick slides out the window and seats himself beside Jason. Jason stirs, a bit startled.

  
“Woah sorry I must have misheard that, I was miles away.” Jason laughs and takes another drag, blowing the smoke up and over their heads. “Or maybe you’re not awake yet.”

  
“I feel like I’m dreaming.” Dick reaches over and takes the cigarette, pulling the acrid smoke into his own lungs before exhaling gently over Jason’s stunned face. “But I’m not. And this is real. And Jay, you’re so beautiful.”

“You’re a sap.” Jason snorts, but blushes, a pink flush forming across his face, darkening the place where his freckles shine in the morning glow. He pulls another cigarette out of the carton beside him. “Shut the fuck up Golden Boy.”  
  
“Jason I—”  
  
“Nah,” Jason takes a deep inhale, staring forward. “Nah we’re not doing this again.”  
  
“Not doing what again?” Dick’s heart is pounding in his chest. He thought things were better, with everything out between them. He thought that maybe things were finally okay. Would Jason leave again? Would Jason never come back? Did he already regret last night? He felt anxiety spike in him like a jolt of electricity. “Not doing what, Jay?”  
  
  
Jason smiles a slow, languid grin. He takes another drag on his cigarette and his mouth swirls with smoke on every word.  
  
“Not gonna let you make me tell you I love you again.”  
  
“Oh.” Dick slides over and rests his head on Jason’s shoulder. They sit there in silence a while, Jason smoking lazily, Dick gently brushing a thumb over Jason’s other hand, his fingers encircling his wrist. “Oh yeah. Yeah Jaybird, I won’t. “

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so much for reading, I'm finally getting back into fic writing after a big hiatus and I am thrilled. I hope you are too, friendos. Kudos always appreciated. Comments feed my very soul.


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